Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in a first aspect to a power plant for generating electrical power according to the preamble of claim 1. According to a further aspect the invention relates to a method for generating electrical power according to the preamble of claim 14.
Description of Related Art
A generic power plant has a burner unit, in which thermal energy can be produced by burning a fuel, a turbine unit, in which a rotational movement can be produced with the thermal energy, and a generator unit which is driven by the rotational movement to generate electrical power.
According to a generic method for generating electrical power a fuel is burnt in a burner unit, thermal energy is produced and the thermal energy is converted in a turbine unit into a rotational movement. A generator unit is driven by the rotational movement and electrical power is hereby generated.
In numerous countries, electrical power is produced mainly with power plants of the aforementioned type. Depending upon the power plant, the fuels used can comprise different, in particular fossil, energy carriers. For example, coal, gas or oil can be used as fuel.
A growing proportion of the total amount of power generated is covered by renewable energy sources. In particular, solar energy and wind energy are increasingly used to generate power. However, the amount of energy hereby produced fluctuates greatly over time. There are scarcely any possibilities for storing on a large scale the superfluous electrical energy hereby produced. This results in serious problems regarding how superfluous electrical energy is to be used. It is not rare in times of increased power generation to even pay a consumer of electrical energy.
In principle it is conceivable to power down the aforementioned power plant during an increased power generation through solar or wind energy. Powering down and re-starting the power plant are, however, associated with a high material burden and can only be carried out slowly with known power plants. These speeds are not sufficient to be able to efficiently react to a fluctuating amount of wind or solar radiation.